Eleanor Roosevelt once said "Do one thing everyday that scares you," but I wonder how often she went unescorted to parties full of strangers. I intellectually grasp that this is not exactly swimming with the sharks, but I think I would almost prefer to take my chances with the sharks. At least then I know what to expect. Here, the closest connection is a friend of a friend of someone I knew in high school. The person who invited me was a friend of a couple girls I dated in high school. It had been nearly a decade since last I saw him, when we exchanged ten words outside a concert. I only got an invite because I happened to be on his friends list on a social networking site.

I enter through the open door and hover around a group of people pouring drinks in the kitchen in celebration of Flag Day (the invitation suggested we wear flag related outfits - I am wearing flag underwear to get under the radar with a technicality - but no one does). In fact, I am offered a shot before I am offered an introduction. Tom, the host, then greets me as though we'd been the best of friends for years and I don't question this welcome, if contrived, familiarity.

Released from his company when he attaches to another guest, I immediately do what I have otherwise disparaged in concept, darting over to a stack of books on an end table and idly flipping through the newest David Sedaris book if just so I do not look as horribly ill at ease as I am. Maybe, if someone sees me browsing this, they will comment that they too love David Sedaris and have I read this or that? Then I will be able to have a conversation on comfortable terms for a little while. No one approaches in the two minute I can legitimately look at the book before I become unconscionably queer to them ("Is he reading that book? In the middle of a party, he's reading? Who invited him?") and I wander to the next community island that can sustain me in the ocean of unfamiliarity.

It is said that one hoping to chat with the broadest swath of a party is well advised to sit next to the food, but I make my way there if just because a cupcake seemed a likely enough balm to my discomfort. While I nibbled, I watched other people talking and politely eavesdropped into conversations in hopes something would be said that would allow me to speak, though it mostly centered on menstruation and douching. I commented, in agreement with the woman speaking, that douching tends to upset the delicate vagina ecosystem and should be

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